This April marks 100 years since the Titanic sank, an occasion that will be remembered with ceremonies, the return of Leonardo DiCaprio and an auction of items salvaged from the ocean floor.

But at the Denver home of that celebrated survivor of the Titanic, Margaret Brown, the commemoration starts now. Beginning today, and lasting through the end of the year, the Molly Brown House Museum will observe the centennial with new exhibits and an extended Titanic-themed tour.

Among the added attractions: audio of an actress recounting Brown’s tale and an interactive touch-screen that allows users to separate myths from reality. Visitors learn she was Margaret, and when she was called by a nickname it was Maggie she answered to.

Molly came later, long after Brown’s death in 1932, when Meredith Wilson and Richard Morris collaborated on the 1960 Broadway musical “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” The musical was made into a film starring Debbie Reynolds four years later.

By 1970, when preservationists organized as Historic Denver Inc. and launched a campaign to save Brown’s home at 1340 Pennsylvania St. from being turned into a parking lot, the name Molly Brown had become so ingrained that the house opened as a museum under that never-used nickname.

The carriage house behind Brown’s Denver home doubles as the museum gift shop. Shelves are stacked high with T-shirts, captain’s hats, DVDs, models of the Titanic and books. The crowds expected to pass through during the next 11 months will have plenty to buy.

Andrea Malcomb, director of operations for the Molly Brown House Museum, said the historic home attracts about 36,000 people a year. The release of James Cameron’s epic movie “Titanic” in 1997 doubled museum attendance overnight and those higher numbers were sustained for more than a year, she said.

Malcomb said she expects to see more than 50,000 visitors this year and hopes that number reaches as high as 70,000. The centennial and its accompanying hoopla — including the release of a 3D version of “Titanic” in April — are bound to boost interest in Molly Brown’s former home. The movie stars DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, with Kathy Bates as the unsinkable lady herself.

Adult admission to the home is $8 a person and includes a tour of two of its floors. The extended Titanic-themed tour is $10 and comes with a special emphasis on what life was like for passengers on the Titanic and gives access to the new exhibits. Visitors can try on period life vests, or try their hand at sending Morse code.

“It’s an amazing way to see the house in a different way,” Malcomb said.

She said museum staff has been thinking about the centennial for several years, and actively getting ready for it for the past year.

“We knew we’d have to do something big,” she said.

Interest in the Titanic remains strong, 100 years later. By one account, more than 1,000 books on the ship have been published, with more coming. During the past year, another three dozen books about the Titanic were published, including “The Titanic for Dummies.”

Artifacts recovered after the ship’s resting place was finally discovered in 1985 were exhibited around the world and attracted millions of people. About 5,000 of those artifacts — from small items such as spectacles and drinking cups to a mammoth 17-ton section of the ship’s hull — are scheduled to be auctioned off in April.

Hailed as “unsinkable,” the Titanic sailed from England to New York with 2,223 souls aboard. Four days into its voyage, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank. Only 706 people survived.

As the ship began to sink and the passengers headed toward the lifeboats, Brown busied herself helping others before two men “practically threw me into the boat,” she told The New York Times for a story published April 20, 1912.

“We were lowered to the water as gently as if it were a boat drill,” she told the Times. “Our boat could have carried several more. I can still see the men up on the deck tucking in the women and bowing and smiling. It was a strange sight. It all seemed like a play, like a drama that was being enacted for entertainment. It did not seem real.”

An enlarged copy of the insurance claim Brown filed after the disaster hangs on a wall in the second floor of the Molly Brown House Museum. The list is long: $500 worth of souvenirs purchased in Egypt, $300 worth of lingerie, a $20,000 necklace. The value of her items lost at sea amounted to almost $28,000.

Brown’s claim was never paid — no one’s was — but her heroic actions after the ship’s sinking elevated her to national prominence. She became an advocate for the suffrage movement and championed for the rights of miners.

The public has a lot of misconceptions about Brown, not the least of which is her nickname. “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” portrays Brown as an outsider to Denver society, and offers a romanticized view of her life with J.J. Brown, whom she married in 1886 before he struck it rich with a Leadville silver mine.

The Browns moved to Denver in 1894. She threw herself into civic activities, became a charter member of the Denver Women’s Club, raised money for construction of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception near the state Capitol and helped found the Denver Dumb Friends League.

“I think people are surprised that she was a philanthropist,” Janet Kalstromexplained. A volunteer at the Molly Brown House Museum, Kalstrom dresses as the lady herself and tries to clear up misconceptions. “I think people are surprised at how involved she was in Denver.”

A volunteer for six years, Kalstrom is taking her interest in Margaret Brown to one extreme. She’s going on a cruise in April that will recreate the Titanic’s voyage. On the night of April 14, the ship will stop above where the Titanic rests on the sea bed and hold a memorial.

Unlike Margaret Brown — who separated from J.J. in 1908 and never reconciled — Kalstrom will be traveling with her husband, Reynold. And in a nod to the technology that’s now available, Kalstrom will be writing blog posts and uploading videos of her trip.

What the Molly Brown House Museum has done so far — adding new exhibits, stockpiling items in the gift shop — is just a slice of what’s planned during the centennial year, both at the house and throughout Denver.

The Denver Film Society will show “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” April 3 at the Denver FilmCenter Colfax (cost: $12 a person).